1869 in the United States

Decades:	1840s ; 1850s ; 1860s ; 1870s ; 1880s ;
See also:	History of the United States (1865–1918) ; Timeline of the history of the United States (1860-1899) ; List of years in the United States ;

Last updated November 08, 2025

Incumbents

Federal government

President:

Andrew Johnson (D-Tennessee) (until March 4)

Ulysses S. Grant (R-Illinois) (starting March 4)

Vice President:

vacant (until March 4)

Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana) (starting March 4)

Schuyler Colfax (R-Indiana) (until March 3)

Theodore Medad Pomeroy (R-New York) (March 3–4)

James G. Blaine (R-Maine) (starting March 4)

Congress: 40th (until March 4), 41st (starting March 4)

Governors and lieutenant governors
Governors Governor of Alabama: William Hugh Smith (Republican) Governor of Arkansas: Powell Clayton (Republican) Governor of California: Henry Huntly Haight (Democratic) Governor of Connecticut: James E. English (Democratic) (until May 5), Marshall Jewell (Republican) (starting May 5) Governor of Delaware: Gove Saulsbury (Democratic) Governor of Florida: Harrison Reed (Republican) Governor of Georgia: Rufus Bullock (Republican) Governor of Illinois: Richard J. Oglesby (Republican) (until January 11), John M. Palmer (Republican) (starting January 11) Governor of Indiana: Conrad Baker (Republican) Governor of Iowa: Samuel Merrill (Republican) Governor of Kansas: Nehemiah Green (Republican) (until January 11), James M. Harvey (Republican) (starting January 11) Governor of Kentucky: John W. Stevenson (Democratic) Governor of Louisiana: Henry C. Warmoth (Republican) Governor of Maine: Joshua Chamberlain (Republican) Governor of Maryland: Thomas Swann (Democratic) (until January 13), Oden Bowie (Democratic) (starting January 13) Governor of Massachusetts: Alexander H. Bullock (Republican) (until January 7), William Claflin (Republican) (starting January 7) Governor of Michigan: Henry H. Crapo (Republican) (until January 6), Henry P. Baldwin (Republican) (starting January 6) Governor of Minnesota: William R. Marshall (Republican) Governor of Mississippi: Adelbert Ames (Military) Governor of Missouri: Thomas Clement Fletcher (Republican) (until January 12), Joseph W. McClurg (Republican) (starting January 12) Governor of Nebraska: David Butler (Republican) Governor of Nevada: Henry G. Blasdel (Republican) Governor of New Hampshire: Walter Harriman (Republican) (until June 3), Onslow Stearns (Republican) (starting June 3) Governor of New Jersey: Marcus Lawrence Ward (Republican) (until January 19), Theodore Fitz Randolph (Democratic) (starting January 19) Governor of New York: John Thompson Hoffman (Democratic) (starting January 1) Governor of North Carolina: William Woods Holden (Republican) Governor of Ohio: Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) Governor of Oregon: George L. Woods (Republican) Governor of Pennsylvania: John W. Geary (Republican) Governor of Rhode Island: Ambrose Everett Burnside (Republican) (until May 25), Seth Padelford (Republican) (starting May 25) Governor of South Carolina: Robert Kingston Scott (Republican) Governor of Tennessee: William G. Brownlow (Republican) (until February 25), Dewitt Clinton Senter (Republican) (starting February 25) Governor of Texas: Elisha M. Pease (Republican) (until September 30), vacant (starting September 30) Governor of Vermont: John B. Page (Republican) (until October 15), Peter T. Washburn (Republican) (starting October 15) Governor of Virginia: Henry H. Wells (Republican) (until September 21), Gilbert Carlton Walker (Democratic) (starting September 21) Governor of West Virginia: until February 26: Arthur I. Boreman (Republican) February 26-March 4: Daniel D. T. Farnsworth (Republican) starting March 4: William E. Stevenson (Republican) Governor of Wisconsin: Lucius Fairchild (Republican) Lieutenant governors Lieutenant Governor of Alabama: Andrew J. Applegate (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas: James M. Johnson (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of California: William Holden (Democratic) Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Ephraim H. Hyde (Democratic) (until May 5), Francis Wayland III (Republican) (starting May 5) Lieutenant Governor of Florida: William Henry Gleason (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: William Bross (Republican) (until January 11), John Dougherty (Republican) (starting January 11) Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: vacant (until January 11), William Cumback (Republican) (starting January 11) Lieutenant Governor of Iowa: John Scott (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Kansas: Charles Vernon Eskridge (Republican) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Oscar J. Dunn (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: William Clafin (Republican) (until January 7), Joseph Tucker (Republican) (starting January 7) Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Dwight May (Republican) (until January 6), Morgan Bates (Republican) (starting January 6) Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota: Thomas H. Armstrong (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: George Smith (Republican) (until January 12), Edwin Obed Stanard (Republican) (starting January 12) Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: James S. Slingerland (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of New York: Allen C. Beach (Democratic) (starting January 1) Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Tod R. Caldwell (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Ohio: John C. Lee (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Pardon Stevens (political party unknown) Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Lemuel Boozer (Republican) Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee: Dorsey B. Thomas (Democratic) (starting month and day unknown) Lieutenant Governor of Texas: vacant Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Stephen Thomas (Republican) (until October 15), George W. Hendee (Republican) (starting October 15) Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Leopold Copeland Parker Cowper (Whig) (until October 5), John F. Lewis (Republican) (starting October 5) Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin: Wyman Spooner (Republican)

Events

March 4: Ulysses S. Grant becomes the 18th U.S. president Ugrant.jpeg — March 4: Ulysses S. Grant becomes the 18th U.S. president

January–March

January 1 – Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing honor/social fraternity, is founded, at Virginia Military Institute.
January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.
January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
February 15 – Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.
March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant is sworn in as the 18th president of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax is sworn in as the 17th vice president.
March 9 – Southern Illinois University Carbondale is established by the state legislature as Southern Illinois Normal College.

April–June

April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York City.
May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
May 10 – The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First transcontinental railroad in Promontory, Utah.
May 15 – Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
June 1
- The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.
- Thomas Edison is granted his first patent for the Electric Vote Recorder.
June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.

July–September

July 4 – World's first rodeo held in Deer Trail, Colorado
September 15 – Brooklyn Fire Department organized as a professional brigade.
September 24 – Black Friday: The Fisk-Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.

October–December

October 5 – During construction of the Eastman tunnel in St. Anthony, Minnesota (modern-day Minneapolis), the Mississippi River breaks through the tunnel's limestone ceiling, nearly destroying Saint Anthony Falls.
October 8 – New York Foundling Asylum incorporated.
October 11 – Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.
October 16 – The Tremont House in Boston becomes the first hotel to have indoor plumbing.
November 6 – The first intercollegiate game of American football is played: Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4 in a college football game.
December 7 – Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
December 10
- The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
- The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, one of the first such laws in the world.
December 13: The Los Angeles Police Department is created, with city marshal William C. Warren hiring six officers.

Undated

The H. J. Heinz Company is founded as Heinz Noble & Company in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.
James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone.
Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.

Ongoing

Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)

Sport

November 6 – College of New Jersey (Princeton) defeat the Rutgers Queensmen (Rutgers) 6 to 4 in New Brunswick, N.J. in what is widely considered the first ever American football game with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, becoming known as "The Birthplace of College Football"

Births

January 4 – Tommy Corcoran, baseball player (died 1960)
January 10 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (died 1969)
February 2 – Smith W. Brookhart, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1922 to 1926 (died 1944)
February 19 – Frederic C. Walcott, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1929 to 1935 (died 1949)
February 29 – Thomas Walter Bickett, governor of North Carolina (died 1921)
March 13 – Fairfax Harrison, lawyer and businessman (died 1938)
April 2 – Hughie Jennings, baseball player (died 1928)
April 4 – Mary Colter, architect (died 1958)
April 6 – John W. Brady, Texas judge and murderer (died 1943)
April 8 – Harvey Cushing, neurosurgeon (died 1939)
April 9 – James Thomas Heflin, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1920 to 1931 (died 1951)
May 3 – Warren Terhune, U.S. Navy Commander and 13th Governor of American Samoa (died 1920)
May 23 – Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, poet and journalist (died 1944)
June 10 – William Kenyon, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1909 to 1922 (died 1933)
July 14 – Bruno Albert Forsterer, Marine Sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1957)
July 17 – Mariette Rheiner Garner, wife of John Nance Garner, Second Lady of the United States (died 1948)
July 20 – Howard Thurston, stage magician (died 1936)
August 5 – J. C. W. Beckham, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1915 to 1921 (died 1940)
August 9 – Annie Malone, née Turnbo, African American millionaire businesswoman, inventor and philanthropist (died 1957)
September 11 – Charles Kilpatrick, one-legged trick cyclist (died 1927)
November 20 – Alma Webster Hall Powell, opera singer, suffragist, and inventor (died 1930)
December 16 – Bertha Lamme, electrical engineer (died 1943)
December 22
- Nathan Paine, lumber baron (died 1947)
- Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet (died 1935)

Deaths

January 1 – Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1857 to 1859 (born 1786)
January 11 – Sophia Dallas, wife of George M. Dallas, Second Lady of the United States (born 1798)
February 18 – Walker Brooke, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1852 to 1853 (born 1813)
March 13 – James Guthrie, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1865 to 1868 (born 1792)
April 13 – Isaiah Rogers, architect (born 1800)
May 23 – Alexander O. Anderson, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1840 to 1841 (born 1794)
July 18 – Laurent Clerc, advocate for the deaf (born 1785)
July 22 – John A. Roebling, bridge engineer (born 1806 in Prussia)
July 30 – Isaac Toucey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1851 to 1857 (born 1792)
August 6 – David J. Baker, U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1830 (born 1792)
September 10 – John Bell, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1847 to 1859 (born 1796)
October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the United States from 1853 to 1857 (born 1804)
October 15 – William Hamlin, engraver (born 1772 in Rhode Island)
November 11 – Hiram Bingham I, missionary to Hawaii (born 1789)
November 21 – Benjamin Fitzpatrick, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1848 to 1849 and 1853 to 1861 (born 1802)
December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist (born 1829)
December 24 – Edwin Stanton, 27th United States Secretary of War (born 1814)
Sandy Cornish, freed slave and farmer (born 1793)

External links

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